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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963038">Leap into Faith</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapbackbuddies/pseuds/snapbackbuddies'>snapbackbuddies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Far Cry 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:53:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,864</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963038</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapbackbuddies/pseuds/snapbackbuddies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Deputy Natalie Rook has a bad comedown from the Bliss. Joseph finds her and comforts her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Leap into Faith</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>back with fic in record time. this time it's deputy/joseph!! i have an extreme fondness for joseph and i hope it shows</p><p>enjoy!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Half in and half out of the Bliss is a very uncomfortable spot for Natalie. She avoids the shit as much as she can— even just a whiff of it when she walks through those Bliss flower fields gives her a pounding headache afterwards, makes her vision spot. She keeps a washcloth in her pocket to hold over her mouth and nose when she can, but sometimes she needs both hands, and the thinner fabric of her shirt or a bandana over her face doesn't keep the clouds of Bliss out of her system as well as her washcloth clamped to her face. It's so immediate, too. The second she gets too close to a flower field or an upturned barrel, her vision starts to sparkle, her head goes dizzy.</p><p>And after she steps out of the immediate area, starts to get a breath of fresh air, it's even worse, somehow. She can almost understand how people are tempted to become Angels, so long as they never have to experience coming down from the Bliss. It feels like her brain pulsates inside her skull, her limbs go weak, her hands shake. There's enough pressure in her head to make it feel like her allergies are acting up worse than ever before.</p><p>Until now, her only experiences with a comedown from the Bliss have been isolated, fairly short incidents— standing too close to a container she blew up, incinerating a flower field, getting taken out with a Bliss bullet, and an unfortunate experience in a cave with a Blissed-up bear. Getting injected with Bliss feels different from inhaling it, and even then, it was nothing that made her hallucinate, just swirly vision and sparkles and a thick, cloying sensation in her throat and lungs.</p><p>When she meets Faith, though, that's… a whole other beast. The entire time she's aware somewhere, in the back of her mind, that it can't be real. But she's not sure how much, and in the moment, it seems so real. The Bliss clouds so many of her thoughts. The grass Faith guides her hands to feels real, but that might be why she does it, for Natalie to think it's real. Faith looks real. Sounds real. </p><p>Afterwards, Natalie supposes she was probably just high out of her mind, sitting in a field somewhere with Faith. </p><p>The hallucinating wasn't bad. Both what she experienced and the probable reality of what happened. Even jumping from the statue was kind of… cool, in a way. Call her an adrenaline junkie, but the rush of air whipping her hair around her face, the plunge in her gut, her pounding heart, was all kind of pleasant.</p><p>But the waking up after is beyond hellish. </p><p>Pools of blood, tacky under her hands and soaked and dried into her jeans, surround her at the base of Joseph's statue. She blinks cluelessly at the bodies surrounding her, the still drying blood. There's no fucking way she actually jumped from the statue and survived, so what the fuck is this? Some elaborate prank to make her feel special? To make her feel invincible?</p><p>When she lifts her head from the ground she realizes how fucking bad her head hurts. Someone could be pounding a railroad spike into her head for how acutely the pain bites. Her hand shoots up to her eyes, covering them from the noon-bright glare, pinching the bridge of her nose. Natalie groans and regrets it. The noise smarts sharply in her brain, radiates down her aching spine from the base of her skull to her shoulderblades. She inhales raggedly and scrambles to get her free hand under her, still shielding her face with her right hand.</p><p>She rises punishingly slow to her hands and knees, then even slower to sit up and get to her feet. Her legs wobble so bad that at first, she's not certain she'll even stay standing. With that, and the way the pressure in her head increases exponentially as she rises, it's a miracle she does. Her hands tremble, but she keeps one pressed determinedly to her to her temple, and the other braced at her side to catch herself if she falls.</p><p>Natalie makes it about a hundred feet away with her tiny, staggering steps before she stops in a grassy patch and sinks gracelessly to her knees. Her breath is coming faster, even more uneven now, which makes her chest ache horribly. Her free arm comes around to clutch her ribs, then her other arm as well as she leans her face down far enough that the sun doesn't bother her so much. She takes another breath, trying to calm down, but it hiccups on the way in. Natalie hesitates, trembling, and then it's so easy to start crying that it's not even a conscious action.</p><p>Crying hurts too, predictably, but once she starts it's not within her power to stop. She collapses into herself, chest pressing close to her thighs. It hurts her head, her chest, her weak legs, her shaky arms, but the emotional release is needed. Weirdly enough, it's one of her few moments to herself since she crash landed in this fucking county, so. There's that.</p><p>She can't be there for that long, sobbing in a little ball, before she hears the grass crunch beneath someone's feet. A little part of her (her survival instinct, probably) is screaming at her to get up, to get out a weapon and fight for her life against whoever is trying to sneak up on her. She's too fuckin' tired for that, too hurt. If one pathetic Peggie can take her out, so be it.</p><p>"Oh, Lamb," a soft voice murmurs above her. Natalie raises her head just enough to see black boots a foot from her face.</p><p>"Hi, Joseph," some crazed part of her says.</p><p>Joseph gets to his knees slowly in front of her. Maybe she should feel the urge to bolt, but she doesn't. He's a cult leader, but he looks so innocuous on his own. Shirtless as ever, unprepared for a battle, concerned eyes behind yellow lenses. If he has one redeeming quality, it's that he does genuinely seem to care for her. Checks in. Wants her to reach his Eden. He must've had a million opportunities to have her killed by now, and he hasn't.</p><p>He puts a hand on her head, fingers sinking into her hair. It blocks out the sun, makes it a little easier to look at him. She hiccups and fumbles to wipe tears away from the corner of her mouth. The warmth and weight of his palm feels nice.</p><p>"I came to look for you at the statue," he murmurs, a little smile on his lips as he says it. "Faith told me you jumped… had Faith in me. I wanted to show my appreciation."</p><p>Natalie sniffles hard and catches her breath for a moment. Sniffles again. "Could show it by not drugging me so much. Hurts."</p><p>Joseph's expression warps into a big frown. His thumb pets at her temple. "You don't react well to the Bliss?" Natalie shakes her head.</p><p>"The comedown is… really bad." Her mouth twists a little as her body remembers the pain and sends another tear down her cheek. "Gets worse with more Bliss." Joseph keeps frowning, but Natalie doesn't know what else to say. It's kinda his fault, after all. Entirely his fault, actually.</p><p>He strokes her temple. She closes her eyes.</p><p>"Thank you," he says, subdued. When she zones back in and opens her eyes, his are closed, so she closes hers again. Joseph's hand slips to the back of her neck. "You're doing so well. I… can't tell you how pleased I am with you." There's a smile in his voice. "You are proud and stubborn, but you have done the right thing so many times. Although at times you are anxious to accept God and our beliefs into your heart, you were Baptized. You proved your Faith."</p><p>Natalie shakes her head and it makes her dizzy. She hates his cult and the things it does. It's despicable.</p><p>Some part of her can't truly think he's despicable, though. Some part of her feels he's compassionate but wildly misguided. There's just… something. Maybe that makes him a little right.</p><p>Joseph shushes her and slides both his hands onto her drying cheeks. Natalie's eyes flutter open to watch as he tilts their foreheads together. His eyes are closed, but she wants to watch his face. "I've seen it," he whispers. <i>Promises</i>. Reverent as anything. "I've seen it."</p><p>Natalie's breath shudders on the way in. Her head isn't hurting so bad anymore. She reaches out, gingerly but not hesitant, and sets her palm on his bicep at the crook of his elbow. He exhales through his nose and pushes his forehead into hers.</p><p>"Thank you," she whispers, throat thick. It shouldn't feel so good to hear, but no one at the Resistance really tells her they're proud of her. They call her a godsend, tell her they need her, but in the end they toss her off toward the next task. None of them have told her in such an earnest voice before that they're proud of her, pleased with her, see her in their future. And she's never tried to tear apart their Resistance like she dismantles Joseph's cult.</p><p>And he's still proud of her.</p><p>She swallows so she doesn't cry again.</p><p>"Are you okay?" Joseph murmurs. "Are you still in pain?"</p><p>Natalie shakes her head and pulls away from Joseph. "I feel better." She wipes her under eye with her thumb. He's watching her with lidded eyes, a small, sympathetic smile on his face. Even though they're apart again, Joseph keeps his hands on her cheeks. When she drops her gaze to his smile, he uses that delicate hold and a wary tug to draw her into a chaste kiss. It's so brief it's nearly familial, if not for the way he draws his left hand down to cradle the side of her neck, thumb nudged under her chin, fingers curled around the side of her neck so the pad his index finger rests behind her ear. Holding her throat. The cross of his rosary presses into her flesh; the dangling beads kiss her breast bone. She swallows against the pressure and hums just to feel it again when he pulls away.</p><p>She blinks and wishes she were in any way high so she could blame this on the Bliss.</p><p>"Stay safe, Deputy Rook." His voice is very low. She blinks a few times while they lean back from one another, as his hand leaves her throat and his right hand pats her shoulder once. "I have Faith in you as well, that you'll make the right choices." Joseph smiles, his eyes flickering over her one more time, before he stands and helps her up too.</p><p>He looks like maybe he wants to touch her again but doesn't. That could be her projecting, though.</p><p>"I'll see you soon," he says, like it's a fact, and turns from her to stroll toward his statue.</p><p>Natalie watches him go and supposes it is.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading!!! any and all comments sustain me!!!</p><p>find me on tumblr @stacispratt !!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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